We had always counted upon the aid and co-operation of the _Quakers_.
We considered them “birthright” Abolitionists. And many of Mr.
Garrison’s earliest supporters, most untiring co-laborers, and generous
contributors were members of “the Society of Friends,” or had been.
Besides John G. Whittier and James and Lucretia Mott, Evan Lewis,
Thomas Shipley, and others, of whom I have already spoken, in my
account of the Philadelphia Convention, there were the venerable Moses
Brown, and the indefatigable Arnold Buffum, and that remarkable man,
Isaac T. Hopper, and the large-hearted, open-handed Andrew Robeson and
William Rotch, and Isaac and Nathan Winslow, and Nathaniel Barney, and
Joseph and Anne Southwick,[D] and fifty more, whose praises I should
delight to celebrate.
But we had received no expression of sympathy from any “Yearly” or
“Monthly Meeting,” and we felt moved to _seek a sign_ from them.
Accordingly, at the suggestion of some of the Friends who were
actively engaged with us, I went to Newport, R. I., in June, 1835, at
the time of the great New England Yearly Meeting, to see if I could
obtain from them any intimation of friendliness. My wife accompanied
me. When we arrived at the principal hotel in the place, where I was
told we should find “the weighty” as well as a large number of the
lighter members of the Society, we were at a loss to account for the
fluster of the landlord and his helpers, and the tardiness with which
we were informed that we could be accommodated. After we had got
established, I learned from one who had urged my coming, that there had
been quite a commotion in consequence of the report that the General
Agent of the Massachusetts Antislavery Society was about to visit the
“Yearly Meeting.” William ----, and William ----, and Oliver ----,
and Isaac ----, and Thomas ----, wealthy cotton manufacturers and
merchants, had bestirred themselves to prevent such “an intrusion,”
as they were pleased to term it. They had secured the public halls of
Newport against me during the continuance of the “Yearly Meeting,” and
had been trying, on the morning of the day that I arrived, to induce
the landlord to refuse me any accommodation in his house. And they
would have succeeded, had not forty of his boarders informed him that
if he did not receive me they would quit his premises. These forty,
though of less account in the meeting, which, I learned, was governed
by the aristocracy that occupied the high seats, were more weighty in
the receipts of the hotel-keeper. He therefore compromised with the
dignitaries by agreeing to serve their meals in a private parlor, so
that their eyes might not be offended at the sight of the antislavery
agent in the common dining hall.
I sought, through several of their very respectable members,
permission to attend their “Meeting on Sufferings” and present to their
consideration the principles and plans of the American Antislavery
Society and its auxiliaries. This request was peremptorily denied. I
then besought them to give their “testimony on slavery,” as they had
sometimes done in times past. This they also refused.
An arrangement was then made by the members who were Abolitionists,
many of whom boarded with me at “Whitfield’s,” that I should address as
many as saw fit to meet me in the large reception-room of the hotel, in
the evening of the second day of my visit. So soon as this was known,
it was asked of me if I would consent to let the meeting be conducted
somewhat in the manner of “the Society of Friends” so that any who
should be moved to speak might have the liberty. I acquiesced most
cheerfully, not doubting that I should be moved, and should be expected
to address the meeting first and give the direction to it.
Fifty or sixty persons assembled at the hour appointed. Deeming it
respectful to my Quaker brethren to sit in silence a few minutes after
the meeting came to order, I did so, and in so doing lost my chance
to be heard. A wily brother took advantage of my sense of propriety,
rose before me and delivered a long discourse upon slavery, made up of
the commonplaces and platitudes of the subject, about which all were
agreed. He was followed instantly by another in the same vein, and when
the evening was far spent and the auditors were beginning to withdraw,
I was permitted to speak a few minutes upon the vital points in the
questions between the immediate Abolitionists and the slaveholders on
the one hand, and the Colonizationists on the other hand.
However, the next morning, in the presence of twenty or more, I
had unexpectedly a long and pretty thorough discussion with the
distinguished John Griscom, so that my visit to Newport was not wholly
lost.
I am sorry that truth compels me to add, that afterwards we had too
many proofs that “the Society of Friends,” with all their antislavery
professions, were not, as a religious sect, much more friendly
than others to the immediate emancipation of the enslaved without
expatriation. They were disposed to be Colonizationists rather than
Abolitionists.